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Wednesday, March 1, 2017

The Process

Cross posted from The Writing Spectacle because, duh, I was supposed to post this here and posted there by mistake. Hey, we had storms in the middle of the night, so I was up from 2am to like 3:15am and then I couldn't get back to sleep because of the coffee, so cut me some slack. ;o)

Ahem...

The Process

Every writer has their own process. Correction, every writer has a
process and adjusts it as needed. Or maybe the adjusting is just me.
Anyway, here's how the process is working out for me...

Step One: First draft - write as many words as I can every day so that it takes me about a month to get the first draft done.

Step Two: Set the first draft aside and work on something else for a week or two.

Step Three: Read the first draft all the way through on the Kindle,
taking notes as I go in a big 5-subject notebook of anything I see that
needs fixing. This can be as small as a comma or as big as noting that I
need to rewrite an entire chapter.

Step Four: Second draft - Input notes all the way through.

Step Five: Read through the second draft, taking notes as I go and
inputting them when I take breaks. If I did my job in step three, this
should be small to medium things.

Step Six: Repeat Steps 4 and 5 until I know I can't make it any better on my own.

Step Seven: Send to my editor. Wait a month. Work on something else while I'm waiting.

Step Eight: Receive edit notes back from editor and input those. Takes a
week or two depending on how bad it was and how driven I am.

Step Nine: Send the manuscript back to the editor. Wait 2-3 weeks.
Finalize cover and blurb while I'm waiting and find something else to
work on.

Step Ten: Receive final edit notes from the editor. Input those. Also takes a week or two depending.

Step Eleven: Read through the book on the Kindle again, checking for mistakes I made or missed.

Step Twelve: Format book for publication.

Step Thirteen: Publish

There are probably things I missed, but that's the gist. And it seems to be working for me.

I started this particular process back in November, I think, with Natural Causes.
Step 1 was the month of November, then I jumped into Step 2 almost
immediately. Went through Steps 2-6 from the end of November until
February 1st, when it was due at the editor. Then I spent February
doing Step 1 for Wish Hits the Fan. Step 8 for Natural Causes
begins this week. After I send NC back to the editor again, I'll be
hitting 2-6 for WHTF and hope to have it ready to send to the editor by
May 1st, which will be after the launch of NC in April. :fingers
crossed: While she has WHTF, I'll be working on finishing the first
draft of Early Grave.

Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

Now, you may notice I don't have early readers anywhere in there. Yeah,
I don't have any of those. I have a couple people I could send to if
things got really bad and I needed an ear, but those people are also
really busy themselves, so they're for emergencies only. Anyway, I'll
talk more about that Friday, I think. (If I remember.)

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Who I Am

Writer of suspense, speculative fiction (aka dystopian, futuristic, post-apocalyptic... pick one, they all work), and urban fantasy for the adult market. Minor conspiracy theorist and major hermit, armchair Jeopardy! champion and fount of useless knowledge, pessimistic optimist and hopeful romantic, B.E. Sanderson spends her time reading, writing, gardening, and generally enjoying life with her husband and their cat.